Required Reading List: The Bluth Family

Arrested Development fans are busy counting down the hours until Season 4 premieres this Sunday at midnight on Netflix, and here at Flavorwire, we’re no different. So, we’re passing the time by declaring this Arrested Development Week, all leading up to a Recap-a-thon on Sunday, when our own Jason Bailey will review the whole season, episode by episode. Click here to follow our coverage.

“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten,” Ralph Waldo Emerson famously quipped, “even so, they have made me.” In this bi-weekly series, Flavorwire plays professor to some of our favorite pop culture characters, assigning reading lists tailored to their temperaments or — in some cases — designed to make them into slightly better people. After all, even fictional characters can have their lives changed by books. Or so we imagine. This week, in honor of Arrested Development , we recommend a reading list for everyone’s favorite family, the Bluths.

The show’s straight-man, Michael is constantly lamenting, fighting with, and being frustrated by his family. But an evening reading about the dysfunctional family in Shakespeare’s Hamlet might offer him a little relief. He’d either decide that his family isn’t all that bad or get some catharsis by imagining a Shakespearean-style tragic ending for each and every one of them.